Latest on UK ADSL (good news methinks!) (UPDATE!)

[snow patrol]

check my new post at the bottom of the thread....

A couple of you Brits out there have heard me mentioning once or twice a few doubts I harbor(ed) about BT?s forthcoming rollout of it?s ADSL services, and have asked me why I wasn?t quite as excited as I should be.

After speaking with Dougster, I actually began to think that this service would be a total joke. Dougster mentioned that he knew of someone who had tested the service last year. One of the main problems with the trial period was the constantly changing IP address (every 20minutes or so), which basically meant that the user would NOT be able to run a server of any kind (for example a quake 3 or rogue spear game server).

Problem number two was that I had previously believed it would be impossible to share a single connection (i.e ONE 39.99 per month line) over a network, and that if you did wish to have ADSL on more than 1 PC on a LAN, you would be forced to plump for BT?s ?business service? which would set you back a hefty 99.99 per month?

The final problem, which I think most people are aware of is the connection sharing ratio, which will ? reports indicate ? be set at 50:1, although experts predict that at the busiest times, a maximum of SIX customers will be sharing the 512k download bandwidth. To be honest, this wasn?t really a major concern for me as I?m pretty confident the download speeds etc. will be fine..

So, it looked a bit bleak?however I?ve just read an article in this month?s Personal Computer World magazine which states that:
- you can have a static IP address
- you will be able to share a single 39.99 per month line over multiple PC?s

Sooo?I?ve gone and ordered it knowing that I?ll be able to host games and share the connection on my 2 PC LAN (although I?ll have to upgrade to WIN98 SE first ).

For info on ordering go to http://www.btopenworld.com

Please excuse me if I bump this thread up a bit from time to time. I know it only affects a small minority of the board?s populous, but I think it?s quite valuable information as it addresses some of the concerns that potential ADSL customers have had. Thanks.

 

[snow patrol]

*bump*


(MadMerc if you're reading this, I couldn't reply to your PM because I don't think you have them turned on)

 

[Chuck]

I'm sticking with my HH. To me pings mean a lot, and 50:1 is a pretty bad contention to have at peak times...

Ohh and I dunno how accurate that article is. BT seemed to be pretty adament on that crap USB idea....

 

[snow patrol]

What do you mean 'that crap USB idea'? The modems themselves, will, as far as I'm aware be USB...but I didn't mention that. You'd still be able to share the connection with a USB modem over a LAN.

Demon Internet are now offering ADSL as well (and they confirm that you can have a static IP). http://www.demon.net

 

[Shagga]

Having posted on your other threads concerning this you will know that I have ordered it too.

It's just a matter of time until I get it. It could be 6 months away for me though. However, you can cancel it if it sux.

The chances are that it will rock initially, untill more and more users sign up. I suspect it will only go down hill in the future, but if we were worried about the future you'd never buy an upgrade. Take the plunge and give it a go.

 

[snow patrol]

Where abouts are you Shagga? I'm in London, so fingers crossed I should get it reasonably soon. Although we are talking about BT here.

 

[Chuck]

I suppose. It's not really an option for me though, because I can't afford the hassle to link it over a LAN (my mum would go bonkers if it messed up )

 

[Dougster]

A few things.

1. If they're offering not expiring IP licences now, that's great! I very much doubt they will be truly static however, i.e. I would expect them to expire every 24-48 hours or whenever you turn off you modem etc. This is because a truly static IP would allow people to run web servers and the like, undermining BT's other ventures. You say that we "can" have a static IP, will we be paying a surcharge?

2. I know that BT went ahead with CAP technology ADSL. I don't know what this means, but I do know that although bandwidth is good latency is terrible, which could present a problem for gamers.

3. When you say you will be able to share a £40 connection over several computers, I take it you mean without BT's knowledge? I'd like to place a bet that BT will make it as difficult as possible for you to do this if they are offering an alternative plan on which you are allowed. Perhaps their "special" ADSL modem drivers will report network card stats, disable network sharing in some way, or be able to detect ICS or other NAT software.

4. I've just ordered it! Even with all its downs, broadband's the only way to go and in the end, all my doubts could be unfounded.

 

[Grimner]

ADSL, cable; how about this 10Mbit switched LAN scheme?

http://www.bredbandsbolaget.se/eng/node85.asp

Any faults, apart from rather few servers on the net fast enough...yet?

 

[snow patrol]

Dougster - I'll try and type up the juicey bits of that brief article tomorrow. Basically, there were quotes from some BT head-honcho saying that there would be nothing to stop people in the same house, or even the same block of flats for example, sharing one single line over a LAN. He did say however, that obviously the quality would not be as good as if you were paying 99.99 for the professional business line.

I'm also pretty certain that you will be able to run a web server if you choose to do so, so I'd be guessing it would be a truely static IP.

BTW - why do you seem so sure that latency will be bad?

 

[Dougster]

Well it looks like my doubts are being unfounded already! This is great news.

The reason that I think that latency may be bad, is that the main purpose for all the testing they did was to decide between using DMT (Discrete MultiTone Modulation) and CAP (Carrierless Amplitude/Phase Modulation). Because CAP is so much cheaper to set up at BT's end they eventually went for CAP, even though at the time there was a huge performance gap.

However the performance levels between the two are levelling out:

<<&quot;Motorola's Sallee says both CAP and DMT will be at a level where a fair comparison can be made in about six to eight months. Meanwhile, DMT vendors say their product has better channel fine-tuning, while CAP vendors are quick to point out the lower cost of their technology.&quot;>>

Now the probability is that BT purchased the technology some time ago, so the fact that they are evening up in terms of performance now, may not make much difference to us end users. But we can only hope it won't be that bad!

 

[nEoTeChMaN]

That is some good news to me because I'm planning on moving back to Wales, UK sometimes next year and was worried about how good their connection was.

nEo

 

[snow patrol]

Here we go, I?ve typed up (yes, remember this is taken from a magazine, not the internet ) the meat of the article for you to look at?

Share, share, even BT say it?s fair

Users will be able to share a BT home ADSL connection to cut costs, even though multi-user business links cost twice as much.

Some BT Openworld executives appeared ambivalent when questioned about whether the company would, or could, stop a basic ADSL link being networked. Any block, technical or legal, they said, would be likely to infuriate both users and the industry.

It would prevent the use of web-pads, which allow untethered access via a wireless network. And it would dampen an expected boom in home networking, wired or unwired, as broardband links become widespread and users find they want to spread access around their homes.

BT Openworld?s new retail broadband director Marc Deschamps said he believes BT could tell whether a line is being shared, but the company is only likely to take action if it felt the sharing was being abused.

The snag of line-sharing is that it can distort the connection ratio, in other words, the number of users sharing a channel or port, which is about eight to one on the local link and about 50 to one further upstream, he said. Service levels are worked out on the load statistics of one user per line.

But his technical manager, Bob Foster, said he would be happy to see people networking links. ?Of course they would have to share the bandwidth between them, and they would not have such a good service,? he said. ?But the more people who get to use the service, the better.??.


?.Security is set to become a growing concern with the new always on links which can give intruders the run of your hard disk. Trial ADSL systems used Network Address Translation (NAT) ? which meant they did not have a fixed internet address and could not be used as web servers ? were tricky to hack.

But BT has dropped NAT for its commercial ADSL systems to enable your PC to act as a webserver as well. You might think there is no point to this since BT will offer 20MB of space on its server, which would be faster and offer virtually unlimited access, but you would be far freer in what you could do on your home machine.

ADSL machines will be vunerable to hackers and BT is not bundling any form of firewall. ?It will be up to the user to choose their own form of firewall software??

It looks ok then.. What do you think?

 

[Shagga]

Sorry Snow for the late reply, but I'm in York. So I'm prolly a bit away from getting it.

 

[Dougster]

It won't be much of a server! What's the upstream? 64k?

 

[snow patrol]

64k upstream??? The service is 512 down and 256 up.

 

[Dougster]

I didn't actually know, I was just guessing from memory. That's not going to be too bad for a low bandwidth small web site. It's a shame you can't run those USB things off Linux or Unix.

[edit]R U going to tell me now that you can! [/edit]

 

[snow patrol]

Nope - get Windows!

 

[Dougster]

I do have windows, it's just Apache (my preferred server) isn't stable enough in the Windows environment for my liking.

 

[snow patrol]

Oh I see.

I wonder how long it'll be before I'm hooked up...

 

[Dougster]

<<I wonder how long it'll be before I'm hooked up...>>

I'll let that one slip by unnoticed.....

 

[snow patrol]

Lol, perhaps not the best choice of words. But I'm sure you know what I meant!

 

[snow patrol]

Am I right in thinking I'll need 2 network cards in one of the machines? I'll also need to upgrade to Windows 98 SE I suppose...

 

[cobain]

You will only need one network card and that is only if you plan to share your connection over a network. If you wanted to run Linux or something, I'm sure you could buy a suitable DSL modem/router from the US. I'm thinking of doing that myself, as I'm not a bit fan of USB and dont want to pay £100 a month.

I recieved an Email from BT stating that they were starting with the business ADSL first and the cheaper USB service would start later this summer

 

[Dougster]

Why will you need two NICs in one machine? I thought the whole purpose of this USB debacle is that you don't need a NIC for the ADSL connection like you do with a cable modem? You'll obviously need the one for your LAN connection, but I'm guessing that's it, or have I overlooked/misunderstood something?

I'm not going to use ICS as it screws around with my DHCP settings. I think I'll use WinGate or the like.

And I'll use a Win2000 machine as my gateway, that is, if the ADSL modem works under 2000! I can then use a Linux box as a small web server! Wahey!

[edit]I forgot to hit reply and when bought the window back up and realised I was too late. Beaten by dead rock star![/edit]